Drip-Fed

Reysha had been through an awful couple of weeks. First, she was thrown out of her adventuring group for pissing off the priest, and the healer veto was an incredibly powerful force. Then, she was late on rent, as going into the dungeons alone didn’t allow her to tackle the harder, better paying challenges. Next she knew, she was unable to pay back the beginner’s loan for equipment the guild had given her and now she needed some serious money. When she failed to provide that, she was thrown out of her home and put before a simple choice: work off the loan or run away.

She chose the latter and spent some time in the wilderness, figuring out what to do. Returning to the city of white wood was an impossibility for the near future, so she had to skim what she had on her. There was her armour, a black leather piece that allowed her to move effortlessly and slip from one dark corner into the next, befitting of an assassin. Well, she was a rogue, getting training as an assassin was something more advanced. Point was, she was the sneaky type.

Her remaining equipment was a pair of daggers, an enchanted adventurers’ bag (bigger on the inside than the outside, although not by much at the beginner’s level) and a map of the Clearwater Dungeon. Whatever way she chose to deal with her debt problem, it would involve money and skill. It was unlikely that she could gather enough to pay off her loaners on her lonesome from a beginner’s dungeon, but maybe she could get enough to get some inconspicuous clothes and then simply get to the Rooting? Simply starting again on another leaf was certainly an option, she just needed to be able to leave this one.

Thusly, she made her way over to this distant part of the world. It was a long, arduous journey, but she rather enjoyed having nobody to talk to but herself. With her last coins, she bought a ferry over to the watery continent, successfully evading people that could have known she was a debtor fleeing from the consequences, and set out.

From there, she reached the dungeon rather quickly. She stepped down the stairs and began her exploration of these unpopular corridors. That had been two weeks ago. Disaster struck her in waves. First, a rat, hiding behind an illusionary wall, hit her with a surprise attack. While the fight itself wasn’t too much trouble, she had been checking her map before it started. And, of course, it sailed right into the nearest puddle of water. Cheap in quality as these beginner maps often were, the ink washed out and was basically unreadable by the time Reysha got her hands on it again.

‘Unlucky, but I already got some valuables, so I can try again another time,’ the tiger girl had thought at the time. The next disaster thus hit when she was tracing back her steps to get out. A crowd of snails had been gracing her path with their touch of mucus. Rather gracelessly, she fell, then had to run away from a bunch of rats that had been alarmed to her presence, working together with a Spirit Fox. Those magically adapt creatures were as large as wolves and seriously bad news. She was a silent killer; direct confrontations were not her style.

She was certain she could have taken either the three rats or the Spirit Fox on their own, but in combination that was above her certain skill level. She did manage to lose them eventually through a combination of running very quickly and Sneaking, one of the earliest skills Rogues were taught.

However, safe as she was at that moment, she was now lost and without map. Then she lost both of her daggers. Then her rations ran out. Then she even lost the bag. Then she just went, “Fuck it,” and let the savagery run wild.

It had to be said that Reysha had never been the most normal of individuals. The reasons that brought the priest up against her were a list of continuous innuendos, getting incredibly drunk when she had the chance to, having the laugh of a crazy person, a pretty loose moral code and ended with an incident involving the stabbing of unsavoury individuals the priest had insisted just needed a stern talking too. A bit more brutal than normal rogue behaviour, but still in the acceptable range.

Now, after weeks spent on her own in the wilderness, followed by immense stress and topped by the need to gorge herself on the raw meat of dungeon monsters, unable to find the exit, the redhead tiger girl was right up at the edge of sanity. Her only moment of calm had been when she miraculously stumbled over a Vitality Fountain and been able to take a bath. The surprisingly warm water had healing qualities, as long as one was inside the dungeon of origin at least. It was a basic way for adventurers to refill their health potions.

Her armour was the only piece that she still owned at that point and it was already torn to a point that only kept her decency. Better than nothing, though, so she kept it on and headed back out, still wanting to find her way out of these damned walls.

Expecting the worst was pretty wise at that point, as the Spirit Fox found her again. Without her daggers, she was less enthusiastic about the earlier statement. Sure, she had sharp claws, but her training in melee combat was all hand to hand, not hand to teethed mad.

And that was when Reysha picked up a sweet scent. Her sensible nose couldn’t believe that something aside from stuffiness could exist in the dank heat that was the underground complex, but there it was, as alluring as honey. It was either a dungeon trap or a human simply drenched in perfume. At that point, she was willing to take her chances and she ran towards the source.

When she found an empty corridor, she was disheartened. The smell extended to other parts of the complex, parts she had not yet explored (or didn’t think she did), but it was strongest where she stood. If she had been given more time or had been in less of a hurry, she maybe would have looked up, but instead she was placed between a pack of rats and the Spirit Fox. ‘This is the end then,’ she thought, assuming her best fighting pose after roaring in an attempt at intimidation. ‘I will claw that fuckers eyes out, if it is the last thing I will do!’ she swore to herself.

That was when the Spirit Fox took two steps forwards. Now, if there was any hope for Reysha leaving this dungeon as the, if not sane then at least socially acceptable levels of mad, then they were in clear jeopardy when a nightmare construct dropped on top of her assailant.

She had trouble even understanding what she was seeing as the creature pressed the struggling Spirit Fox to the floor and sank its spider fangs into the back of its neck. It had eight fuzzy legs, that part she could work with, having fought a lot of spiders in the past two weeks. However, that they were attached to a clear blue slime was where her understanding began to waver. The two folded green wings that protected the being’s back under a shield of feathers just didn’t fit with the now bloodsoaked fangs that were placed underneath a pair of colourless cat eyes, the snout of a rat, complete with whiskers, between them and the eyes above.

It was like some god had decided to play puzzle with a bunch of creatures and had given up at the main body, creating this… thing. A thing, she realized that was the source of the smell and a thing that had just saved her life.

“Behind you!” a female voice suddenly cried out to Reysha and reminded her of the trio of dog-sized rats at her back. They were quickly storming down the corridor, already in jumping distance. One of them was intercepted by a small body of white and black, but the other two made a jump for it.

Reysha couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of her new situation and her crazy laugh most definitely had not gotten any saner. Definitely too loud and ranging from shill too deep, it reverberated from the stones. “Oh, who cares anymore?!” she asked out loud as she swiped at the quicker of the two rats. The hardened nail of her ring finger scratched deep into the monster’s left eye, the remaining claws screeching over bone.

The rat let out miserable sounds as it was swiped off course and crash landed on the floor elsewhere. Having more luck, the second rat bit into the soft tissue of Reysha’s lower thigh. “That hurts!” she complained, bringing her foot around with as much energy as she could muster and slamming the body of the rat against the wall.

Stunned by this, the rat could only keep its jaws clenched. That was sure to keep doing damage, but it also made it a stationary target and Reysha’s claws soon began turning the monster’s back into mincemeat. By the time the first rat finally recovered, its comrade was already dead. In an act of suicidal revenge, it made a reckless jump and bit Reysha’s right arm.

The tiger girl hissed in pain and moved with immediate primality. Her bloodied hand grabbed the rat below the neck. The comparatively small paws scratched at her, adding shallow wounds to her just recently healed state, but adrenaline pushed all of that aside as she sunk her teeth in the gap between her hands and the creatures head, right into the softness of its neck.

A humanoid she may have been but a tiger was the cross that had been used, and as such her fangs were sharp, perfect to rip and tear. Hot blood filled her mouth, the taste of salt and iron, drenching her dark lips in a colour as crimson as her hair. The meat tasted foul, but it was nothing she hadn’t had to eat before and so she simply discarded the cadaver. Before it even met the floor Reysha was already pouncing on the last rat.

On their own, such a rat stood no chance against their natural predator. It didn’t help that it had been occupied with the attempt to catch a metal fairy, keeping its attention with flashy, if immensely weak spells. When it was suddenly pressed to the floor by thick leather boots, it was already too late. With savage brutality, Reysha kept the chest of the large critter pinned while her hands closed around its neck and squeezed. To break it, she didn’t think she had the strength with her injured arm, but consistent pressure she could hold.

Eventually, the rat stopped as much as quivering, and Reysha stood up straight. Only to fall against the wall and then slowly slide down. She giggled some more, “Holy shit, I am alive,” she thought out loud, running her bloodied hands over her face and then looking over.

Apexus didn’t mind any of the brutality, it had seen and done worse. As a matter of fact, it was currently visibly dissolving half of a Spirit Fox while part of it were still sticking out. The thing was simply too big and needed a bit to be encapsulated fully.

All the slime paid actual attention too was the woman’s face. Small tiger stripes stretched symmetrically from her upper neck to the edge of her features. Separate, but also natural, kind of stripes surrounded each of her eyes like born warpaint, almost meeting at her nose. Her lips were curved in a wide, slightly unnerving but deeply attractive smile and the stubby nose that sat between her sharp eyes was cute and fit nicely into her heart shaped face. The blue colour of her iris, sitting in the white of her eyes, was the only thing about her that didn’t seem to be red at that moment.

Apexus made a rough gesture with one of its spiderlegs. Immediately the tiger girl attempted to jump on her feet. With the adrenaline subsiding, her hurt leg protested against the endeavour and she fell back down not even halfway standing. When the slime didn’t move, she looked somewhat relieved.

“Crazy world,” she mumbled, “absolutely crazy.” She ran a hand through her crimson hair, the chaotic mess falling back into place, slightly clumped up from the life fluid now sticking to it. Apexus repeated the gesture. “WHAT?!” she wanted to know. “Don’t wave your leg around, if that even is yours, you… thing!”

Hurt, Apexus pulled its leg back and pouted. Reysha felt a tiny fist hitting her shoulder and finally laid eyes on the black and white fairy. “My awakener most certainly does not need such disrespect,” Aclysia berated. “His question, if I understand correctly, is rather simple,” she pointed at the three rat corpses. “Are you going to eat that?”

That was the final nail in Reysha’s fleeting sanity. After all the stress and the danger, this nonchalant question was too much. Something inside her broke completely, to never be restored, something that had been rather fragile within her to begin with.

Unbeknownst to her, this was actually not the worst thing. There was a thing to be said about it being advantageous for adventurers to be a bit on the insane side of things. Common sense could get in the way if one was traversing multiple dozens if not hundreds of different worlds and cultures. Sometimes, just having a warped sense of everything that was at least one’s own was a nice anchor amidst all of these different normalities. Time would tell how it would work out for her or just how far gone she actually was.

Simply glaring at Aclysia, without any question even entering her mind what the fairy was or why she was hanging out with Apexus, just accepting that this was part of the omni-verse, for a prolonged period. After the silence began to grow tense, she replied. “Yes.”